


this is a bad town! for such a pretty face!

by Anonymous



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ableist Language, BAMF Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Blood and Violence, Catharsis fic, Gen, Gore, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, No Incest, Pedophilia, Protective Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Slut-Shaming Language, Torture, just Extreme Sibling Devotion, tldr Five tortures and kills someone that hurt Klaus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-03-30 03:39:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19034032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The one where Five finds out the full truth about Klaus’ first time, and well– let’s just say Diego isn’t the only vigilante in the family.





	this is a bad town! for such a pretty face!

**Author's Note:**

> // for the umbrella academy kink meme prompt:
> 
> Klaus lost his virginity way too young, to a much older man with a thing for sweet, vulnerable, pretty young boys. It still affects him as a young adult .
> 
> After Five returns, he somehow finds out - maybe Klaus breaks down and tells him after Five makes slut shaming comments to him. It's the first time Klaus has talked about it with anyone. And Five is incandescent with rage.
> 
> He finds out the man is still living close by. He's probably still hurting other boys. Posing as a naive school kid he gets the man alone, and the predator becomes the prey. Five takes his time sadistically killing the man who hurt his baby brother.
> 
> //
> 
> This prompt… spoke to me.
> 
> Title is from Kill of the Night by Gin Wigmore, the song that plays when Five’s pulling one over on the Commission in The Day That Wasn’t, which, coincidentally, is also a perfect song for fantasizing about killing sexual predators.
> 
> //
> 
> TW:
> 
> This fic contains discussion of underage rape (not super detailed, but still mentioned). The man that Five hunts down and kills is extremely fucked up, and he’s very creepy to Five (no physical contact, but he makes gross suggestive comments). There is a scene of torture and murder after the second paragraph divider bar thing.
> 
> With all this said, please proceed with caution!!

For all the time Klaus Hargreeves spends wishing one of his jerkass (said with love!) siblings would listen to him, there are still times when he feels like it really wouldn’t kill them to let him wallow in his misery spells _alone_ every once in a while. 

They all live together in the old mansion for the time being. It’s certainly not a permanent arrangement, but the goal is for them to all learn to get along properly for once in their lives, now that their father isn’t there to play favorites and push them apart. It’s very good, because now, Klaus has help whenever he gets his cravings and withdrawals, and he has Grace and Diego around to make sure he eats. And okay, sure– he’d missed his siblings like hell when they’d spent all those years estranged, and it’s heartrendingly sweet to have them back in his life every day now. 

But it’s also very bad, because now Klaus has to keep his voice down when he cries. He can’t fall asleep one night. His body’s on edge and his brain’s constantly sending panic signals as if the threat is right here, right now, when the reality is that it’s far back in the past. (Not that he was in a physical or mental state to do anything about it then, and “pretty boys like [him] deserve it” anyways–)

Klaus sobs deeply into his pillow, wishing he could fucking conjure Dave whenever he wants (not just once a day for an hour or two, he’s already used up today’s time and that’s _bullshit_ when it comes to the love of his life) so his boyfriend could hold him. Dave always listens to the whole tragic saga (minus this particular page that’s eating him tonight) of the Séance’s life, and he’s truly so kind and understanding that maybe Klaus can work up to telling him about this, too. 

And Ben’s alive again, after they did all that time travel fuckery to save the world. But he’s no longer joined to Klaus at the hip, and he’s certainly enjoying the mortal pleasure of sleep at the moment, so who would Klaus be to deny him that?

When Klaus finally cries himself out, he takes a look at the clock reading 4 am, and realizes how dumb hungry he is, for no reason. Comfort food is in order, he supposes.

A diminutive figure is sitting at the kitchen table already, snacking on his favorite goddamn sandwich. 

“Doth my eyes decieve me, or is that little Number Five before me?” He hopes a little theatricality will hide the rawness in his voice.

Five frowns, bitter as black coffee. “Don’t call me little.”

Klaus digs a bag of spicy Doritos out the cabinet and sits down beside his brother, ready to go to town. “Would you rather I call you–” he giggles, despite his troubles. “That thing me and Diego used to call you as kids?”

“What? _No–_ ”

“Mambo? Mambo Number Five?”

Five barks out a laugh, and it’s _ridonkulously_ cute, but Klaus knows that if he told Five that, Five would gouge out his eyes with a butter knife.

“Fuck off,” Five says, trying valiantly to wipe the smattering of glee off his face. “Haunted Klaus.”

Klaus gasps. “ _How dare you._ ”

He makes his brother laugh again, and it almost makes him forget–

He changes the subject before the strain can start showing. “What brings you down here, anyway? Late night rowdiness? An urge to stick it to the man now that he’s gone and can’t yell at you for being out of bed?”

Five withdraws back into himself a bit. “I can’t sleep sometimes. Living in a wasteland for decades will do that to you.”

Klaus nods, licks the Dorito dust off his fingers.

“Have you been crying?” Five asks, blunt and to the point, but with the same sort of softness he’d used after Klaus had first gotten back from Vietnam.

Curse Allison and her incentive to teach them all to be more emotionally open.

Klaus has no problem being emotionally open. He waxes poetic about Dave on the regular, he listens to his siblings talk about what ails them, he’s even been there to help Luther cope with their dad’s abuse, now that their number one has finally recognized it for what it was. 

But _this_ he’s always kept to himself. 

This is shameful, this Five would never understand.

His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, frozen.

“You don’t… have to tell me anything,” Five manages to spit out through his stubborn pride. “But it would probably help.”

Klaus takes a breath in, then exhales, letting his shoulders drop down. “Did I ever tell you about the rockin’ good time when I lost my virginity?”

Five grimaces, rolls his eyes. “God, you know, I’m actually trying here. The least you could do is take it seriously.”

“I–”

“I don’t want to hear about your sexcapades again, Klaus. I get it, you’ve had a lot of sex, you’ll fuck anything that moves, please just spare my ears from the subject _for once._ ”

Five’s being his usual smug piece of shit self, and yeah, Klaus does make a lot of raunchy jokes and comments regularly, and judging by the bags under Five’s eyes, he’s probably a bit sleep-deprived and extra prone to crabbiness. Five definitely doesn’t mean for it to strike such a nerve, but it does, it strikes deep.

“You didn’t have to change the subject to _that_ if you didn’t want to talk,” Five rambles on, but Klaus has had enough–

“Shut the fuck up,” he snaps. “You’re always jumping to conclusions about what someone’s going to say. You move way too fast, like all the rest of us are too stupid for you to waste your precious time on.”

Five’s actually visibly surprised, Klaus can’t remember the last time he’s gone off on one of his siblings like this, but he’s not even done. “And to be clear, I wasn’t changing the subject. I was– I was going to tell you what’s wrong. I’ve never told anyone about this, and I thought you were willing to listen.”

“I’m still willing to listen,” Five says, with ever-growing concern creeping into his expression. “I’m…” He hesitates on a word he probably hasn’t said since they were seven and he broke a vase with his teleporting. “... I’m _sorry._ ”

He keeps looking at Klaus expectantly, and Klaus feels the rage that had boiled over start to recede. He sighs heavily. “So, I used to sneak out a lot, after you left. Okay, I snuck out before you left too, that’s how I– started getting hooked on everything. But after you left, I’d go out for longer. I would steal Allison’s makeup and fix myself up real good. I must have looked appetizing as all hell, because this dealer I met one night? He, uh.” 

The dread hangs thick in the air, Klaus can almost touch it.

“I was high, but… not out of my mind high. So I can still remember it, clear as day, wouldn’t you know it? I knew I couldn’t fight him, he was a big, grown man and I was a kid.” 

If he hadn’t shed so many tears already tonight, Klaus is sure he’d be crying again now. “And yeah, that’s.” 

He claps his hands together once, and the hollow sound rings out through the hallways. “That’s the story of how I lost my virginity.” 

He scours his brain for a joke he can make to lighten the mood, but who is he kidding, he could never joke about this. “I asked him to stop and he didn’t. And now I get these days where I remember, and I have all these skin-crawly feelings. So yes, I was crying, earlier. Aptly noted.”

Five’s got this look in his eyes: it looks like the one he’d had constantly when he’d been trying to stop the apocalypse via finding the owner of the eye– a blazing indignant determination. He’s scowling, snarling. “How old were you?” he asks.

Klaus stalls. “Well, it was a month after you left. That would have made me…” he pretends to count on his fingers. “Thirteen.”

“Fuck,” Five seethes. “That mother _fucker_.”

They’re quiet for a while, until Five says, “I don’t want this to come out the wrong way, because I know you did the best you could. But did you ever report him?”

Klaus shakes his head. “I didn’t wanna set foot in a police office with all the drugs I had on me. And the whole… sneaking into clubs thing. I felt like I couldn’t turn him in without turning myself in, and–” he rubs the back of his neck, shuddering. “– a part of me felt like I’d had it coming. For being as dumb and pretty as I was.”

Five warps away in a flash of blue light to where he can pace angrily between the table and the stove. “You absolutely did not. No one deserves that, no one can ever do anything to ‘have that coming.’” 

Klaus feels his body slumping, curling inward in a self-protective shape. “Yeah. No, I know. It’s just… hard to get those feelings out of my head sometimes. It’s bullshit that that was my first time, just like it’s bullshit that none of us were raised normally. Just my luck, I guess. Being Klaus Hargreeves is such a joy.”

“I’m sorry,” Five says, then he says it again– “I’m sorry… for what I said, when I thought you were messing with me. That was crossing a line, and really _not good,_ everything considered.”

Klaus wonders for a moment if this whole scenario has been a dream, surely his oldest/youngest brother would never apologize so sincerely of his own volition. 

Five is dead serious though. Klaus stares at him, looks down at the Doritos, then looks back at Five, and he’s still standing there. Not a dream, then.

“Wow. It’s… thank you,” Klaus babbles. He yawns, stretches his arms out in a wide arc over his head. “And thank you for listening.” 

“You can talk to me. If you ever need someone to talk to again,” Five offers. He hesitates, waiting until he’s sure Klaus isn’t uncomfortable, before giving his brother an awkward pat on the back.

Before Klaus can fully exit the kitchen, Five calls his name. Klaus turns on his heel. “What?”

“Do you by any chance know if he’s still around here? Or remember his name, his face, his physical type?”

Klaus grits his teeth, exhales a hard breath. “Why? The past is in the past, Five. There’s nothing you or I can do about it anymore. You can’t report him for something that happened so long ago with no proof.”

Five shakes his head. “He needs to be _punished_ , Klaus. What if he’s still preying on kids?”

“What are you even gonna do about it?”

Five shrugs, smirking just the tiniest bit. “Just gonna make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else is all. Don’t worry.”

* * *

Five isn’t actually planning to report him to the authorities at all. Eudora Patch might’ve been a good cop, and Diego most certainly would have been one too, but Five doesn’t trust the rest for jack shit.

Oh, Five is indeed going to make sure the man never hurts anyone else, but the way he’s figuring on doing that is by making sure the man isn’t breathing for much longer in general. The Academy has taught him the effectiveness of vigilantism, how to take down opponents two to three times his size with ease and panache, _ut malum pluvia_ and all that. The Commission has taught him how to never get caught, how to stay twenty steps ahead and keep running. 

As much as Five resents both those institutions, his time spent serving each of them sure does come in handy now: tracking Geoff Barthes down is a breeze, it only takes him a teleport in to the local police department to check the local sex offender registry and a few days of surveilling the area, to get the timing down.

He lives in the basement apartment of a run-down brick building that’s not too far from them at all. (Of course he lives in the basement. Of fucking course.)

Five rings the doorbell.

The man that opens the door is exactly as Klaus and the police profile described: strong build, broad-shoulders, reddish blond hair, a beard (longer than the one he’d had when Klaus had last seen him, but still there). “Can I help you?”

“Hi. Uh. I’m doing an interview? Of neighbors around the area,” Five stammers, trying to make himself sound as innocuous and inept as possible. 

“Is this like a school thing…?” Geoff asks, too fucking eagerly.

Five nods. He’s wearing his uniform shorts, socks and shirt, minus the tie, vest and blazer. It’s really imperative to the plan that this man doesn’t know right off the bat that the only school Five’s ever gone to is one that taught him how to snap adults’ necks in an instant. He holds out the lined paper and folder he brought with him. 

“It’s just a few questions, it shouldn’t take too much time. But if you’re busy, I can…” he backs up, as if to leave, and predictably, Geoff stops him.

“No, no. Come in. I can get you some lemonade. It’s very hot out today, isn’t it?” His eyes roam up and down Five’s body, and it’s not entirely unlike the way the Handler had leered at him. Five had _hated_ her for that, and he hates Geoff for even more.

“Yes, sir,” Five says, really laying it on thick. He follows Geoff into his home, and it’s decorated just as tastelessly as he’d been expecting.

Geoff pulls out a chair and gestures for Five to sit, and when Five does, he lingers there, hands not touching Five’s shoulders, but almost. He fumbles around the kitchen to pour some lemonade. Five watches him the whole time, and he doesn’t do anything visibly suspicious, but fuck if Five’s going to drink a drop of anything in this house.

“So. What school do you go to?”

“St. Cecelia’s.” It’s down the road, and the uniform’s basic design is a dead ringer for the one he’s already got.

Geoff smiles, setting two lemonades down on the table. “That’s where I went to school. And what grade are you in?”

“Seventh– or– wait, no. I’m going to be in eighth now, in August. I just turned thirteen,” Five says.

“Perfect,” Geoff replies. “That’s a perfect age.”

Internally, Five wants to scream. He just has to keep playing this role for a little while longer to lull this man into false a sense of security, then it will all be worth it, but Geoff really isn’t making it easy.

“Uh… do you have a name? Or can I call you mine?”

Five’s stomach turns over, but he keeps his voice even, oblivious. “Quin.”

“That’s unique,” Geoff purrs. “Are you a quintuplet?”

“A what?” Five bullshits. Then he widens his eyes in faux-realization. “Oh, like someone with five siblings?”

“No, like–” Geoff laughs, amused, and totally buying the lie Five is selling. “Like there’s five of you. Like having four twins, imagine that.”

Five fakes a laugh. “ _No, thank you._ I like being an only child.”

“Hey. You haven’t had any lemonade. Do you not like old-fashioned hospitality?” Geoff is keeping his tone light, but there’s something dark underneath already. He hasn’t had any lemonade either.

“Oh…” Five pretends to be embarrassed. “I’m diabetic. I didn’t know if you’d used real sugar in this, and I didn’t want to make a fuss. I’m so sorry.” He pushes the drink away from him, and a flicker of disappointment crosses Geoff’s face.

“That’s okay,” he says, after a second. He gets up to put both glasses back in his fridge. “Give me one second, then we’ll see about answering those questions you have for me.”

Five gives him a pleasant smile in return, and from the reflection on some tacky dogs-playing-poker painting on the wall, he watches as Geoff peers out the window of his front door, then, in a move he certainly believes to be more subtle than it is, locks the deadbolt. All according to plan.

Geoff sits down again, staring at Five from across the table. 

Five smiles at him again, and scribbles out some evenly spaced questions, with room for answers beneath. “So Mr…?”

“Call me Jeremy,” Geoff says.

Five taps the pen against the table once, twice, three times. “The first one is, ‘how would you say you serve your community?’”

Geoff thinks for a moment, and it’s clear he really doesn’t want to answer this question. “I think I’m a… good mentor figure. I’m always willing to teach anyone that wants to learn.”

“Aww.” Five writes this down. “And what is it you like to teach?”

“All sorts of things,” Geoff answers. “Fishing, rowing. And some things you probably can’t write on that paper and turn in.”

Five definitely wants to hack Geoff’s tongue out of his mouth at some point. “‘What’s your favorite part about living here?’”

“Why don’t you come a little closer, Quin?” Geoff suggests, completely bypassing the question. “I have hearing issues. I think I’d hear you a lot better if you were next to me. Or on my lap.”

 _Jesus Fucking Shit Christ._ “I’ll shout to you then,” Five says, raising his voice. “Where were you the night of April 14, 2002?”

The cocky look on Geoff’s face is gone in an instant. “Excuse me?”

“April 14, 2002, Lucky Looper’s? August 9, 2006, Flamingo Hall? February 2, 2007, Waverley’s? I have more if you want.”

“Wh- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Five scoffs. “You raped my brother, you shitbag. April 14. And countless other boys. You’ve been creeping on me this whole time, clearly you don’t plan on stopping. You’re _disgusting._ ”

“Wh- wha- no, I–” Geoff sputters. “Did the cops put you up to this? Are you working for someone? You… said you were an only child.”

“I’m a liar, Geoff,” Five says with an unhinged laugh. “It’s what I do.” He finally reaches into the backpack he’d brought in with him.

“You little _cunt–_ ” Geoff stands up so fast that his chair gets knocked back, and he comes barrelling over to Five, but Five warps behind him in a flash, knocks Geoff over the head with the metal rod he’d brought with him.

* * *

Geoff takes a second to get his bearings, to realize Five’s tied him to a chair in his own bathtub. He tries struggling against his restraints, and it’s completely fruitless. “The fuck are you doing?” 

Five punches him in the face, hard enough to make his nose crack. “You know, I thought it was pretty obvious. Apparently you’re a dumbass as well as a predator.” 

“Predator?” Geoff winces as the blood from his nose drips into his mouth and he’s unable to do anything about it with his hands bound as tight as they are.

“Yeah,” Five says. “You won’t be a predator for much longer, though.” He digs through his backpack, considering.

“What… do you mean?”

Five selects a handful of knives, stolen from Diego (but the man has so many and loses so many every other day, he’ll never miss them). “Oh. I mean you’ll be dead soon.”

Geoff laughs wildly, and Five can see that he’s already starting to sweat, starting to panic. “Y– you don’t have the guts.”

He screams as Five stabs a knife into his arm, deep, all the way through, leaving it in so he won’t bleed out right away.

Five yanks at Geoff’s hair so hard that a few clumps fall out into his hand. “You really don’t understand. I’m fifty-eight years old, and I’ve killed hundreds of people. I’ve lived through the end of the world. I’ve saved this whole planet, including your miserable piece of shit ass, from total destruction. I’m more powerful than you could ever imagine, and I won’t let anyone mess with _my brother._ ”

Geoff’s next laugh sounds more like a sob. “You’re a fucking psycho.”

Five smiles, and this time, it’s the one he knows is unsettling as all hell. “ _Thank you,_ ” he replies, taking inspiration from Klaus. He stabs another knife into Geoff’s thigh.

“Now here’s what we’re gonna do,” Five murmurs. “I’m going to pull off your fingernails one by one, and when I’m done, you’re going to apologize. For everything. That’s not going to make me _not_ kill you, I just want to hear you say it.”

Geoff’s full-out crying by the time Five’s done with his left hand, and when Five’s done, he’s muttering things in a shaky voice under his breath, panting, gasping for air.

Five deposits Geoff’s fingernails in a neat little pile in Geoff’s shirt pocket. “I’m waiting for your apology.”

Geoff spits on the floor in front of him. His eyes are glassy and unfocused already. “There’s always gonna be the young and pretty, and there’s always gonna be people that take advantage. That’s the way nature is. You’re just… just wasting your time.”

“That’s stupid. You’re so stupid,” Five says, but it’s _not enough,_ it will never be enough. Nothing he does or says to this man will ever give back what he stole from Klaus, nothing will ever make him regret his inhuman actions. But then, it’s not just Geoff, it’s not just Klaus. There’s thousands of stories like this every day, in every corner of the world, that never come to any amount of justice. _Well fuck the world right back,_ Five thinks, rage coursing through him, scorching and bright like the blast of a supernova.

Five punches Geoff's face again and again until his own knuckles are bruised.

He holds a knife to Geoff’s throat, then thinks better of it, instead teleporting the industrial hammer he’d brought along into his grip. 

“Wrong answer, by the way,” he says, before knocking out Geoff’s teeth with a blow from the heavy tool. He holds the man’s lips shut. “Swallow them down. Be a good boy and swallow,” Five sneers, in an approximation of the filthy words Geoff might have said to Klaus way back when.

Geoff looks like he’d rather vomit, but he does as Five demands, with much pain and disgust on his face. When Five takes his hand off the his mouth, Geoff spits again, but this time, not as a show of disrespect. Just to get the blood out of his mouth, from where the jagged edges of his teeth had cut into flesh.

Five cuts out his tongue next. He’s never cut out anyone’s tongue before, that kind of work was always done by the likes of Hazel and Cha-Cha. It’s actually harder than he’d anticipated, and it makes a fucking mess. Blood stains Five’s hands now, and there’s something satisfying about that, when it’s the blood of a horrible, horrible person who deserves all this suffering and then some. Make no mistake, Five still doesn’t actually _enjoy_ killing. But this is what you could call a special case.

“I’m gonna do the uh– predictable thing now,” Five says with a snicker, unzipping Geoff’s pants. “This is what you deserve, for not keeping it to yourself. But if you want me to stop, you can always say so.”

Geoff cries in agony, tries and fails to form words without a tongue or teeth as Five slices the genital clean off.

Well. Clean as a figure of speech, that is. Five gets even more blood on him from the whole affair. He’s going to have to throw this outfit away, but it’s his last remaining Academy uniform, so good riddance, he’s got all the new clothes Allison’s bought him now, this is really the best possible send-off.

Geoff passes out after that, and Five uses that time to let the water run in the bathtub, washing away the blood splatters.

He uses his powers to long-distance teleport them out to an empty field, on the outskirts of the city, pitch black and with not a single soul around for miles.

He wakes Geoff up by hitting him, and when the man regains consciousness, Five grins at him. “Enjoy your last minutes alive, asshole. No one will miss you.”

Five’s heard burning alive is one of the most painful ways to die, so he lights a match and sets Geoff on fire, stepping back to watch his handiwork. It’s gruesome, it’s ugly, and it’s a fitting end for a monster. The body isn’t recognizable after the flames have done their job, a very practical bonus. Five snuffs out the fire with some dirt so it doesn’t set the whole field ablaze, and from there? He goes back home, has some macaroni and cheese, and sleeps like a baby all night after a job so thoroughly well-done. 

* * *

Five has blood under his fingernails when he comes into Klaus’ room the next morning. _Huh._ Klaus zeroes in on that odd little detail, wondering what tricks that old dog’s gotten up to, until–

“I killed him for you,” Five begins, the little psycho. “Your ‘first time.’ He was a complete waste of space. I made sure he knew that.”

Klaus inhales sharply. Exhales. Inhales-exhales. “Oh… what a… way to spend your Friday afternoon.” 

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Five admits, now looking weirdly sheepish. “It just made me so angry I felt _sick._ I wanted to hurt him for hurting you.”

“Hey, I’m glad he’s dead,” Klaus says, ruffling his brother’s hair. “I hope you cut him up real good, you little slasher flick, you.” 

Five smiles a little, then it fades. “I know it doesn’t really make anything better. Maybe one day I’ll be better at my time travel equations and I can–”

“You’ve done a lot already,” Klaus says. “For the record, you can’t start going around and killing everyone who’s ever wronged me. This was your one free pass. That was dangerous, you know.”

"I had it under control the whole time," Five assures him, but it does nothing to soothe Klaus' real dislike of Five having been alone with a predator for any amount of time, even with his powers and Academy training. Klaus doesn't know what the fuck else he's supposed to say in this situation, it's like, the first time anyone besides Dave or Ben or Diego has ever cared about his suffering at all. His eyes well up with grateful tears. "Thank you."

Five nods, and Klaus scoops him up in a big hug.

**Author's Note:**

> this might be the darkest thing I've ever written but I do hope y'all like it?


End file.
